Bookkeeping and expenses · Guide

How to Set Up Ramp for Your Team

Set up Ramp for a small business: choose Free or Plus, write the expense policy, invite users with roles, connect accounting and Slack, and review first tasks.

By Andy Kang · Published · Updated ·Checked against official sources

Key takeaways

  • Start with the Setup Guide, which Ramp shows admins for the first 90 days.
  • Every Ramp user has one base role, and add-on roles such as Manager can be layered on top.
  • Invites need an email, department, location, role and, in some cases, a manager.
  • Ramp says its general models use aggregated and masked data, and contract data is used only if a customer opts in.

By the end of this guide your business will have a Ramp account with an expense policy, invited staff with the right roles, and a connection to your accounting tool. Ramp handles company cards, expenses and bill payments, so this guide covers team setup only. Ask your accountant about coding and policy choices.

Before you start

Choose a careful owner to act as the Admin. Ramp says Owner and Admin are super-user roles with full permissions, so keep the number small. Decide who needs a card, who only needs reimbursements, and who approves spending. Applying for Ramp, linking bank accounts and card terms are separate steps in Ramp’s own flow. Follow its prompts and read the terms yourself.

Plan What it adds for a team Price as listed
Free Cards, bill pay, receipt matching, QuickBooks Online and Xero integrations $0 per month per user
Plus AI coding for every field, custom user roles, audit log, more integrations $15 per month per user, plus a platform fee based on team size
Enterprise Implementation services, more integrations, dedicated support Contact sales

These details come from the Ramp pricing page. It notes a 20% saving on annual billing for Plus. See the current price there before you decide.

Create the account and workspace

  1. Follow Ramp’s application flow from the pricing page.
  2. Open the Setup Guide in the product. Ramp’s admin guide says admins see it for the first 90 days.
  3. Work through its tasks, which cover verifying bank accounts, expense policies and approval workflows, inviting your team, issuing cards, and setting up accounting.

Ramp says most Setup Guide tasks clear only when you finish the related setup, so you can use it as a checklist.

Invite your team

Ramp’s invite guide lists what you need before you start.

  • Required: email address, department, location and user role. A manager is required if you can invite only users on your team.
  • Optional: Funds or Spend Programs, and a deactivation date.

Ramp offers single invites, bulk invites by CSV, HRIS invites, phone invites, and invite links. Invite emails are system-generated and cannot carry a custom message. Tell your team to watch for the email.

For a new employee, Ramp’s user guide says onboarding covers accepting the invite, creating the account, confirming funds, signing the expense policy, verifying a phone number, setting up multi-factor authentication, and downloading the mobile app.

Set the admin and data settings

Check these items.

  • Roles. According to Ramp’s roles overview, every user gets exactly one base role: Owner, Admin, Employee, Accounting, IT Admin, Guest, or View-Only Admin. Add-on roles such as Manager, Finance Admin and Accounts Payable layer on top. Permissions are additive.
  • Expense policy. Ramp’s policy setup guide says you can set when receipts and memos are required and customize approval workflows. A banner under Policy, then Travel & expenses, prompts you to review the policy first.
  • Custom roles. The pricing page lists custom user roles as a Plus feature.
  • Policy Agent. On Plus, Ramp lets you start from its template, your existing policy, or another uploaded document.

On AI and data, Ramp’s AI blog post says its general models are trained on aggregated and masked customer data. It says sensitive models can use private data temporarily without storing it and that it does not train models on private data end to end. It says contract data is used to improve its models only if customers explicitly opt in.

Connect your other apps

Ramp lists QuickBooks Online and Xero integrations on the Free plan. Plus adds NetSuite, Sage Intacct and more. Its admin guide links an accounting overview, so follow that for the exact steps.

For Slack, Ramp’s Slack guide says an admin with enough Slack access completes these steps.

  1. On the Ramp dashboard, go to Company, then Integrations.
  2. Select Slack.
  3. Click Add to Slack and approve the permissions.

Ramp says employees can then type /ramp new in Slack to request funds, and Admins and Managers can approve requests in Slack.

Tasks to try first

Review your receipt and memo rules

This helps when staff forget receipts. Choose thresholds with your accountant.

1. Policy > Travel & expenses
2. Complete the policy review step
3. Receipt and memo submission rules: set when receipts and memos are required
4. Preview your settings and finalize

Invite one pilot team

This helps when you want to test the flow with a small group before everyone joins.

Invite three people:
- Email: [work email]
- Department: [department]
- Location: [location]
- User role: Employee
- Manager: [their manager]
Ask each to complete onboarding, including multi-factor authentication

Connect Slack for fund requests

This helps when staff ask for spending approval in chat.

1. Company > Integrations > Slack
2. Click Add to Slack and approve permissions
3. Choose channels for business alerts
4. Staff test with /ramp new

Common problems

Ramp’s invite guide lists a few frequently asked problems. One is “Why am I unable to invite someone? It says the email is already associated with an account.” Check Ramp’s FAQ in that article before you retry.

Frequently asked questions

What do I need to fill in to invite someone to Ramp?

Ramp's invite guide lists email address, department, location and user role as required, plus a manager in some cases. Funds or Spend Programs and a deactivation date are optional.

What is the Guest role in Ramp?

Ramp describes Guest as temporary, limited access that defaults to a 6 month deactivation date. The role requires Ramp Plus and Guests cannot be issued physical cards.

Can a Ramp invite email include a personal message?

No. Ramp says invite emails are system-generated and cannot include a custom message, so consider telling your team to expect it.

Sources

  1. Ramp pricing
  2. Ramp Help Center: Getting started as an Admin
  3. Ramp Help Center: Inviting users to Ramp
  4. Ramp Help Center: User roles overview
  5. Ramp Help Center: Expense policy setup
  6. Ramp Help Center: Slack integration for admins
  7. Ramp: How Ramp builds customer-first AI

About the author

Andy Kang, AI Partner Team. Andy Kang writes the AI directory for AI Partner Team, which sets up and builds AI tools for small businesses alongside managed IT. Each page is written from the vendor’s own pricing, help and trust pages, and shows the day those pages were checked.

  • Facts come from the vendor’s own website and help docs, linked on every page.
  • Each page shows the date we last read those sources.
  • We do not score or rank tools. We say who each one suits and who it does not.
  • If a vendor does not publish a price, we say so instead of guessing.

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